When my wife and I married in 2009, we had decided that we’d each keep our own surnames. We’re modern, independent feminist women. It’s how we roll, and that was that.
Or so we thought.
She was already changing her first name; it turns out that Becky lacked a formality even her mama must have felt. She’d holler “REBECCA!” when serious discipline was in order.
So as my lovely wife grew out of what felt to her like a younger person’s name, she began using her middle name and became Elenor Heyborne.
Then we decided to have a kid.
Elenor dropped the bomb one night when she was rubbing my swollen pregnant feet: She wanted to become a Gomberg.
I was delighted! I am so fond of my last name, and I was charmed by the idea of sharing that with her. It seemed like another way of coming together, which surprised me, because I hadn’t even realized I’d felt any distance.
And I immediately felt a sense of relief from an anxiety I didn’t even know I was experiencing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was worried about getting split up in airport customs if we had different surnames, or that we’d have difficulties checking our kidlet out of school or visiting him or her in the hospital if need be. I think the horror stories of same-sex couples who parented before marriage and adoption were legal had crept into my subconscious (this, after “Dumbo” and “The Land Before Time” had made permanent imprints on my brain about the devastation of being separated from your family).
Hearing that Elenor wanted to become a Gomberg suddenly gave me a sense of calm, allowing me to name my fears, maybe because I knew they were much less likely to become eventualities.
But what about our feminist street cred?
“You don’t want to take my name; I don’t own you,” I said, as if telling a woman what she wants or should do is the personification of female empowerment.
But hearing her say she wanted to share my name and trying to imagine how we’d ever choose our child’s last name, I realized that taking someone’s name doesn’t have to be a continuation of the tradition’s patriarchal history. Today, marriage is an equitable coming together in which a couple can choose either spouse’s last name or even pick something completely new — whether or not they want to have children.
I love how my friend, a self-identified feminist who now shares her husband’s last name, remembers her decision. For her, marriage was a foray into creating a family, and she was going willingly into that new life, ready to be changed by it. What a stunning personification of confident partnership.
It reminded me that feminism isn’t the same ideology it used to be. Today, it is the broadening of what it means to be a human on this planet, and the increased acceptance and inclusion of all gender identities (among other attributes) across a gorgeous spectrum of humanity.
Which means that as far as I can tell, name changing, and its accompanying personal evolution, is fair feminist game.
So, keep calm, friends, and marry on.
Marina Gomberg’s lifestyle columns appear on sltrib.com. She is a communications professional and lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, Elenor Gomberg, and their son, Harvey. You can reach Marina at mgomberg@sltrib.com.